Courtney and I had the unusual opportunity to spend a lot of time before Julian arrived, planning and preparing for him. In some respects we felt far more prepared than we might have had Coronavirus not let us both work from home for 5 months. We knew there were things we couldn’t plan for, but we also knew we had a bunch of things we could do ahead of time.
As we started preparing, we had a philosophy of finding hand-me-downs and used “stuff” as much as possible, buying new for those things we couldn’t find used. One of our big first decisions was diapers, and we basically ruled out disposables without much hesitation. The thought of throwing away so many diapers was unpalatable, and we also calculated that we could save a bunch of money with cloth, despite the modest up-front cost. We realize that this is not an option for all families, given various circumstances like time, affordability, and family size. But we wanted to give it a try for ourselves and see how it went!
It took a while to figure out what/how cloth diapers worked, because there’s a lot of new styles of diapers (all-in-ones/all-in-twos/etc) beyond the simple pre-folds/squares of the past. Just getting grounded took a few weeks, but we eventually settled on pre-folds because they’re not only cheap, but easier to wash and relatively inexpensive compared to new diaper systems. They also tend to be the recommendation for newborns anyways.
Our first step was trying to figure out what to buy and from where, so we test-purchased some Gerbers from Amazon, and also 2 different sizes from Nicki’s Diapers, interestingly enough a company that seems to have been started in the Madison area. The Gerber diapers were no match for those from Nicki’s, which were thick and square. We ultimately ordered five 6-packs of the Nicki’s brand small size, and 1 of the medium (the mediums are the Imagine brand, which seem to be rebranded Nicki’s diapers for about $1 more). After two weeks, this amount has been perfect for doing laundry almost every-other day. As Julian grows, we’ll evaluate whether we want to change to a larger size, or even switch systems. We think we’ll end up with an all-in-two system (liner that snaps into a cover) for things like outings, possibly daycare, and for quicker changes during the day, but also some pre-folds because they’re cheap and easy.
As for covers, we were fortunate to get a number of covers from my sister, which helped keep our costs down there. We found a few covers at a local thrift store as well, and bought a few from Amazon to round out our supply. We have about 4 different brands, although have been buying the Thirsties from Amazon. We’re torn on which ones work and which don’t, mostly because we can’t really tell the different brands apart except for the way they snap/leg elastic.
I did a bunch of research on washing, and it turns out the Charlie’s Soap we use is already recommended for cloth diapers. As was the trend with supplies before Julian arrived, we stocked up on it by buying an 8# bag from them ahead of time. Our philosophy was to have a lot of everything on hand so we didn’t run out in the first few months (which is also my strategy during normal times, to get bulk discounts). We ran all the diapers through the wash about five times to prepare them, which is the recommendation for new cloth diapers to strip the natural oils and improve absorbancy. For now we’re using the drier to dry them, but may switch to a short drier cycle, followed by line drying. d\
Our next frontier is in wipes. So far we’ve been using a combination of reusable wipes with a spray bottle of water, in addition to a bunch of packs we bought to see what we liked. Starting today we filled a spray bottle with some wipes formula made of water, coconut oil, Dr. Bronner’s baby soap, and tea tree oil. There are a lot of chemicals in store bought wipes, which in addition to trying to reduce the amount of stuff we throw away, is driving our desire to use something reusable. Courtney found a 50-pack of fleece wipes from Etsy, and that has been more than enough to have wipes everywhere we need them. We wash the wipes at the same time as the diapers, throwing them into the wet bag with the diapers.
I’m sure over time we’re going to refine our system and learn new things. If you have any tips, feel free to comment below!
And finally, to show how DIY-preferred we are, here are some photos from a few years ago when the bearings in the washer went out, and instead of buying a new one, or a $450 replacement tub, I bought new ones from Germany and pounded out and replaced the rusted one…
